Tea deal to fight poverty

from This Is Hertfordshire

SHOPPERS at Sainsbury's in St Albans will be given a free tea bag on Saturday to mark the store's drive to support impoverished Third World producers.

The chain has just announced that all of its Red Label own brand tea from certified Fairtrade sources, which guarantee producers get a reasonable price.

The news will triple the entire British Fairtrade tea market to 9,000 tonnes a year.

Over the next three years, Sainsbury's will move all its own-brand tea, ground coffee and hot chocolate to Fairtrade, creating about £2million extra each year for developing countries.

Steve Beale, manager of the Everard Close store, said "Colleagues and I are very excited that we are helping St Albans celebrate Fairtrade and giving our customers the opportunity to have a Fairtrade cup of tea.

"We drink nearly 3 billion cups of tea and ground coffee every year in the UK and this means a much larger number of producers in developing countries, from tea-producing Kenya and Malawi to coffee growers in South America, will benefit."